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Why anyone would ever have sweden as socialist is beyond me. In the early 1900's, Sweden was, as my professor in national economy called it, "a libertarian/republican utopia" with a very conservative,almost aristocratic political climate, an extremely conservative view on religion, 2% flat tax rate, big military spending and no social welfare system. Ironically, it was this system that drove 1.5-2 million dirt poor swedes to america.

Today it's very humorous that Americans still have the stomache to demonize Sweden as a socialist hellhole when we have no inheritance tax, no wealth tax, a lower corporate tax than America and a lower income tax rate than a lot of states in America, like California for example. So to reply to your statement, Sweden does not need to "re-invent" capitalism, it was here all along.

So if socialism has never been part of the nordics, would that equate to misleading the public in relation to political groups that have not only actively sold the values of such. But have in fact been able to get into government through what some of you are claiming never existed?

I read articles and comments on the libertarian site, reason.com, from time to time. By that source, post #2 does not describe libertarianism. Perhaps the poster could specifically define his/her specific definition of libertarian.

Byke,it might be interesting for you to read up on sweden's tax rate during what you describe as a reign of socialism and compare that tax rate to the tax rate in the pre-Reagan administration when the top tax rate of USA was 70 %. Meanwhile, sweden had a very lax tax rate and was the 4th largest economy in the world.

So if socialism has never been part of the nordics, would that equate to misleading the public in relation to political groups that have not only actively sold the values of s
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So if socialism has never been part of the nordics, would that equate to misleading the public in relation to political groups that have not only actively sold the values of such. But have in fact been able to get into government through what some of you are claiming never existed?

Socialism and social democracy are two entirely different things. The former means that private ownership and business is abolished, similar to what you had/have in communist countries. The latter is based on capitalism but use taxes to redistribute wealth.

Until the early-mid 1900's Sweden had no welfare state; it was pure laissez-faire capitalism. After the social democrats came into power, a tax funded welfare state was built, but the whole idea of social democracy was that it is capitalism that creates the wealth, and the governments job is only to redistribute wealth and to create happy and productive workers.

Post #5I may have been paraphrasing my professor a bit, and it is true that most people might not describr such a society as libertarian. However I think we can both agree it was a conservative society and about as far from socialism as you get. However thats no greater mistake then when people in mainstream politics in the U.S equate liberals to socialists, as if they missed their class of politics 101.

"Socialism and social democracy are two entirely different things..." Isn't social democracy considered a type of socialism though?

And I don't think of libertarians or conservatives in the U.S. at least rallying around an aristocracy. Wouldn't aristrocracy be considered a kind of monopoly? (Also, fiscal conservativism does not absolutely equate with social conservatism.)The Swedes also had a monopoly on religion, right? While the U.S. may have traditionally been weighted as Christian, there have at least been a gazillion interpretations of Christianity. That at least sets the stage for differing viewpoints.

From my experience with wealth redistribution, the state dictates a lifestyle and punishes (even kills) those who differ from state dictates. State services are limited and rationed, and when state employees are subpar in their job performance, there's little-to-no accountability.

Post #10 Not once did I say that 20th century sweden fit whatever conservatives/republicans in America believe is conservatism, ,but rather the more international, original meaning of conservatism (again, the socialist=liberal fallacy comes to mind). Also i never said that the politics in sweden were entierly aristocratic, which would have Sweden a faux democracy, but rather conservstism with a few aristocratic influences, thus making it conservatism bordering to aristocracy.

Lastly, even though the american constitution does give people the right to believe in whatever religion they want, both you and I know that americans didnt look too kindly on people who practiced the wrong kind of christianity, why else do you think that the people on the Mayflower left England because of their "immorall ways" and "lenient enforement of the commandments"?

EDIT: I realise now that I used the word "republican" instead of conservative which would lead you to believe I was talking about the american version of conservatism, my mistake.

"...both you and I know that americans didnt look too kindly on people who practiced the wrong kind of christianity..."

No, I actually don't know what's meant by the wrong kind of Christianity. I was under the impression that varieties of Christianity were practiced in different regions by different groups and that this evolution has been continuous.

Post #12 The original settlers who arrived on the mayflower had a very narrow view of what "true christianity" was, which is one of the reasons why they left England, which had become increasingly tolerant in this sense.

I am not going to comment more than that on current affairs in USA regarding religion because honestly, I dont know that much about it.

I also want to point out that I realise that I might come off as an anti-american, which is far from the truth. I am just so sick and tired of being stereotyped as a socialist and coming from a "socialist hell" when that is far from the truth.

In addition to this, it is to believe that all forms of politics that does not conform to the american ideal are socialist/communist and are automatically "wrong" As bender accurately pointed out, there is a HUGE difference between communism/socialism and social democracy.. As I wrote earlier, the social dems were in power during the 50's and forward but still had lower taxes than the american counterpart and encouraged people to start new businesses and develop the market which lead to Sweden's position as the 4th richest country in the world and had 100 000's of guest workers from all over the world, including USA, despite the attempts of the american government to paint sweden as a "socialist hell". This is still the view many americans get when they think about sweden, which is once again, far from the truth. Sweden was even on the allies side inoficially during the cold war, as we had a common enemy in Russia, but that didnt stop the american administration from accusing Sweden of being socialist.

Can anyone honestly believe that a country with less than 0.1 % of the worlds population could become the fourth richest country in the world while the government of said country was "socialist"? Does anyone believe that 100 000's of italians, greeks, spaniards, britons, irish, american etc would go to work in a "socicalist hell" voluntarily?

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